Brad Pyatt on Business Success and Football Industry

Brad Pyatt is a business owner who played for many professional Football teams in the National Football League (NFL). After going to college, he joined the Indianapolis Colts as a free agent in 2003. After playing for a few other teams in the league, he eventually switched to arena football and joined the Colorado Crush.
A decade later, Brad Pyatt wanted to start his business, steering away from his prior football career. Over the years, he started his own ventures and became a successful entrepreneur. In fact, one of his companies grew to $180 million in sales. He is also a part-time football coach and a creator of many new brands that are dominating the market.

Today, Brad Pyatt resides in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. He enjoys exercising to stay in shape, reading the news to stay informed, and spending time with his family.

What are some of the important things to consider when building a brand?

Longevity is definitely a major consideration. You have to create a plan that will guide your business and future development. Usually, people start by envisioning a one-year idea. Then, they focus on the long-term operation and create a five or ten-year scheme of progress. I tend to focus on the upcoming 12 months as those will determine if the business even survives in the distant future.

Then, you have to spend time and money building relationships with your customers. Whether you sell goods or services is not your primary concern. The key to developing a brand is to have repeat buyers and a high customer retention rate. If you neglect your interactions with potential or previous buyers, however, you will ruin valuable relationships.

Then comes marketing. Unlike the other two, marketing is something that can take years to fully finesse. You simply start by trying new things and committing to the process of trial and error. Once you find a venue that advertises your business successfully, scale immediately.

What are some marketing techniques that work well for your businesses?

I have a lot of different strategies that work well and optimize successfully. I target certain people with hard-copy ads like the ones you might see in the mail. Then again, I also have enormous interest groups that I connect with via digital media. Not to forget one of the biggest helpers of start-up ventures, social media. If you are not using social media platforms to promote your business, you are instantaneously losing potential revenue streams.

Do you manage all aspects of your business or tend to delegate duties?

I like to be involved in nearly every part of the business. Such approach enables me to learn every sector and know exactly how things operate. Once the company is scaled to a certain point, however, I delegate some low-level tasks. After all, the most valuable thing business owners tend to have is their time. Hence why I cannot afford to waste it doing something that I can teach another person.

Did your time in the NFL help you learn how to coach or was that a self-taught skill?

It was a combination of both. My career in NFL certainly helped though. Although I never received one-on-one mentoring, per se, I did play football professionally for years. In turn, my experience taught me about proper ways to run practices and develop players. Nowadays, I use all of that knowledge to help my own players achieve their highest levels of performance. To be honest, however, I always attribute any and all success to the hard work of those I coach. I am simply there to point them in the right direction as needed, but they are the ones who handle the workload.

Do you think the nature of NFL is slowly changing as time goes by?

I think it is changing just as much as entrepreneurship is. Nowadays, all sports seem to be intertwined with politics. Although I am not a fan of it, it is understandable given how large the sporting industry became. Additionally, technical developments are making it possible for people to watch games from almost every device known to man. To parallel this with a business example, just consider how data discoveries made it easy to target the right audience.

What do you do for fun?

I spend time with my family and friends. Since I tend to be busy during the week, I use weekends to relax. Sometimes, we all get together and grill while watching whatever sport is in season. If there is a holiday that prolongs our time off, we organize quick trips in the area.

In all honesty, what we do does not really matter. Over the years, I learned to use my weekends to completely decompress and get ready for the upcoming challenges. So, whether I spend time watching movies or playing flag football with my family is irrelevant. The bottom line is to get some much-needed mental rest which improves performance.